El Gordo

This is WELL in advance, but I need to get an idea what I can and can't do, and therefore need to bother financing/saving for over the next 2 years.

So - Circumstances are that I'm mature student, and I will be in the US on a student visa for 10 to 11 months from late August 2011 (so I'll be 32 when I go out). Likely locations are NY, IL, VA or OR.

What, if any, restrictions are there on buying a car or motorcycle and running it for that long on a student visa? Will there be likely difficulties in obtaining insurance for it?

I know I can get health insurance (PPO) for about $85 a month, but need to know if there's firms out there do dental cover for people on student visas? It'd be my luck if I didn't have it that I'd need it.

I know I can't work in a paid capacity on a student visa, but what are the regs on unpaid work for student visa holders? I'm hoping to find something within media, or maybe even one of the political campaign teams seeing as it'll be caucus/primary season when I'm there.

I'm thinking of hooking a gamble on flights and taking a one-way out, and riding the currency for a one-way home. Am I likely to be told to stop taking the mickey by immigration if I land on a one-way and say I'm there for 10 or 11 months?

I'm sure I'll think of more and will ask when it comes to mind, but your thoughts on the above would be appreciated.

Thanks!

caleyjag

Are you going on an exchange program?

When I did my exchange (10 years ago) we were allowed to work on-campus part-time. I am not sure if this is still allowed.

In my case the health insurance was all sorted out by the university. Most universities I have dealt with in the US don't let you in unless you have valid health insurance, so this is probably something you will need to sort out.

There are no restrictions on buying a car, to my knowledge.

El Gordo

Thanks for responding!

It's sort of an exchange programme if the partner campus has anyone to come over to the UK, but if none come over I suppose it's just a straight-out year abroad taking classes. Semantics I guess though.

Was hoping to do something non-retail if possible, to make it career-specific. Was it mostly retail stuff on campus or were there other options too?

edit - and did you find your year studying in the US improved your prospects when you were looking for work to move out there?

caleyjag

I'm not sure how easy it will be to do a 'straight-out year abroad'. There are a number of complications with sponsorship and visas.

You want a well-organised exchange program, with someone coming the other way.

The reason for this is that the Yank in the equation will pay the American course fees. You may not be aware but in most cases a year at a decent American university is going to sting you $30-40k, and that's just for course fees.

A well organised UK exhange program should alleviate most of this cost burden. In my case I also just had to pay for nice, cheap UK student housing, while the poor American sod had to pay Bay Area rent. In 1999, San Francisco rent was three or four times more expensive than Edinburgh!

Moreover, the program should help you with health insurance and all the other necessary bits and bobs.

Of course, this all depends on what your host institution in the UK is - you'll want to be somewhere that has a decent program (which usually equates to somewhere that Americans would want to go to, although there are exceptions). Looks like you are planning so far ahead you can probably even figure the UK side of things out at this point.


As for the on-campus jobs, that of course included things like working in shops and stuff, but it was broader than that. My mate (who was from Glasgow) worked on doing websites for on-campus departments. She made a nice little skin off it, if I remember correctly.

El Gordo

Fortunately it's a well organised programme. The most I'll ever pay is the same as my UK fee for the year, and direct to my home institution, whether a reciprocal student comes or not (so £3223 in my case - some lucky folks get it cheaper because their unis subsidise it even more).
This used to pay off really well for some people before University of California dumped 80% of their partners (under £3500 for a year at Berkeley? Wowser!). Still pays off well for the rest though when all said and done. I was hoping to go to a uni that has State Uni San Fran on their list but while I got accepted the home end of the course wasn't so hot and it meant living in the boonies for 3 out or 4 years so I didn't fancy that much.

Accommodation is the set-back. My home uni leaves you to pay the local fee, so if I end up in Albany it could be $10k, if I'm in Baton Rouge just $4k so there's big differences. The American coming over just pays the fees here of £3600 to £5600 though so when all told it weighs out kinda even I guess.

Insurance is a bit of a sore point for a lot of brit students about to head out in September, it seems. Many of the US institutions offer cover that isn't much more than on-campus PCP cover these days, and is over £1000 (nope, not dollars - pounds) for the year. So if you need referring to someone off campus there's more cash to be found and the risk if it's something significant and costly that your visa will be revoked to compel treatment at home. I'd rather pay less, go private, and get HMO or PPO that still allows me to use campus as 1st point of call but go elsewhere and have wider cover if I go out of state. I understand the campus cover used to be good and cheap too most places but a lot of that has been reigned back in and priced up since 2000

Lucky for me I'm off to a top 10 uni here (curses, just dropped outside the top 4 this year lol). Demand to come over should be good, I hope.
Got things pretty tightly planned for this end. Accommodation for first 2 years, finances and all that jazz. Practically nothing else to do right now

Hmm, good thinking on the jobs. Maybe if there's a college paper/magazine or radio/tv I can try and get involved. Less likely to be cash in those I guess but certainly worth thinking on.

Thanks for all that so far

caleyjag

Ah. Yes, I went to Berkeley back in the good old days when fees didn't exist in the UK at all. So basically a free year for me at Berkeley. Those were the days!

My understanding was that Berkeley basically subsidised the program, since back then they had much more cash than Edinburgh. Since they are a Californian state-run organization, money has been in short supply more recently (California is broke) and a lot of programs have been cut. Shame, because it's quite simply the coolest university in the world, and the more Brits that get to experience it, the better.

If you are in a top ten UK university however I would imagine you'll still have some great exchange programs. I just finished working at the University of Washington in Seattle. Have a look out for that - Seattle is wonderful. If you are considering Oregon you might as well look at Washington while you are at it.

CarrotCruncher

Hello,

I'm over here on an F1 and a mature student, there are a few of us about on British Expats.

The insurance I have covers me for emergency dental treatment only, which I am happy with. There are definitely student dental policies they just seemed very costly. The college I am now transferring to has a great insurance policy that has emergency dental , and is $475 for 12 months. I'd check with the colleges you are looking at to see if they too have similar.

There are no restrictions to you purchasing a car or motorcycle, however, you'll need to take a driving test to get a licence, these vary state to state. I know that IA issues the licence for the duration of your I20, so how long you are going to be there is immaterial, other states may be the same. Insurance seemed pretty easy to get but will be costly, unless you can find an insurance company that will accept any no claims insurance you have accrued in the UK, I managed to get them to accept 12 years of mine. (Saved me $450 for 6 months).

On an F1 visa you are able to do on campus work, what that may be depends college to college. I managed to work on the paper. I have done volunteer work and perhaps unwittingly, have assumed it's OK because it's unpaid. It will be interesting to know if that is or isn't OK. There seems to be plenty of internships around and I know there were plenty of students assisting at the caucus's, if it's ok to volunteer, you should be good to go!

I'm not sure about the flights and couldn't comment on immigrations take on that. However, I paid for a return flight, there wasn't a lot in the price between a one way and a round trip, and just to have some contingency if I needed to get home, was worth it.

Good luck.

El Gordo

Thanks again, to you both.

Caleyjag, the options are pretty limited in some regards - it's the campuses on the list that given year, and while some like UEA and Hull (I'm turning them both down btw) have extensive options, others are somewhat limited. My final choice is in the middle, and gives a little over a dozen options. I'm leaning toward SUNY in Albany so it's within reasonable driving distance for NYC and Boston, and Baltimore, Philly, DC and even Chicago aren't out of the question for a weekend trip. The Oregon option is in Portland (Reed), but my uni doesn't offer Seattle on their list (though again one of the places I turned down did). Final choice will depend much on what I enjoy in my first year at my home uni, so I've got an idea of what I'll be researching for my dissertation - but location is a big consideration. I don't much fancy Williamsburgh in some ways (tourist town and all that) but proximity to DC might be useful if I go down the politics route. I wish I could just pick somewhere, write and ask and see what happens. Bah humbug.

Carrotcruncher - glad to hear from someone also out there as a mature student! One thing I'm tending to do is showing more interest in universities than colleges, with the unis having post-grads too, so a higher chance of older folks there - but someone mentioned to me there's a lot now coming out of the forces and going to college, so there's quite a few mature students most places. Does that seem to ring true?

Good info on the insurance, and your experiences with the driving. Gotta admit, as a guy with a license to drive articulated lorries, it'd be weird taking a car test again. Also the work thing - something I'll definitely look into further.

Internships is part of why I'm tempted to book one-way if I can. If I'm studying 9 or 10 months in up-state NY, and I'm working 8 weeks in LA for the summer, it'd be a PITA to have to get an internal flight back to NY to come home. But good point about the contingency. I'm planning to make sure I leave a certain amount in my parents savings account so if anything goes wonky I can call them and ask them to transfer it to my own account - but in the mean-time it'd be out of reach for 'accidental' spending (on beer)

BTW - are you using a UK account with a visa cash card, or did you take a load of ready cash with you? I have no idea how that side of stuff works.

md95065

With an F1 visa you should probably be OK with a one way ticket as far as immigration is concerned.

As a practical matter, however, a transatlantic one way ticket is almost certainly going to cost a lot more than the cheapest return that you can get so you will probably be better off just buying a return and not using the return flight. (You could also get a return ticket with a return flight in 11 months or so and then pay to change it to the exact date that you want when the time comes, but once again, a return ticket that is valid for a year is going to be more expensive than the cheapest one that you can get and the change fees also add up pretty quickly)

CarrotCruncher

In my experience, limited though it is, colleges and universities are pretty much the same. There are of course community colleges, but on the whole, a 4 year college = a university.

The college I am transferring to doesn't have that many mature students, or as we are politely called, non traditional students. However others, mainly the state Uni's, I was looking at certainly do have more non trad students . There have been a few ex military, in some of my classes, but there seems to be a pretty generic mix of mature students, all attending for various reasons, re-training, redundancy, boredom, children left home etc.

My car test was amazing, 10 questions (I think), a 2 minute drive, and a few laughs about the steering wheel being on the wrong side. Nothing like the torture you endure in the UK. I am looking at taking the motorcycle test though, I believe that may be slightly more challenging, but I held it in the UK and would like the option here too.

I brought enough cash and travellers cheques for 3 months, and I opened a bank account when I got here. I just transferred my money once it was all set up. To open an account, you don't need anything other than your passport, despite what some tellers, etc may tell you. With online banking it's pretty easy to manage everything.

El Gordo

Lovely advice, thanks

Just Jenney

I'm assuming that you're already in university at the moment in the UK? If so, how has your university's international office advised you?

I work in an international office in a university and we always tell our students to look through our website carefully and to meet with the exchange advisors to discuss their options. If you haven't done that yet, I strongly advise you to, because they'll best be able to help sort out your issues and figure out what program best fits your needs academically, personally and financially.

Then, once you've narrowed down your choices, you can begin doing a little bit more indepth research into those specific host institutions. For instance, all of our non-immigrant students are required to carry the same health insurance coverage, which costs about $1200/year. Some of our exchange agreements include health insurance, some don't. All of our exchange students live on-campus (mature students are housed in singles), which may or may not be covered by the exchange agreement. Other universities may have other policies. So a lot of it really depends on what exchange programs you're considering.

~ Jenney

El Gordo

Excellent stuff. Might pack my lid and leathers then!

El Gordo

Starting in September this year, so I know a lot will get covered in time
Just one of those folks who likes to worry for the longest time possible

meauxna

Wow, Reed! Schmancy.
Let me know if you need any Portland info.